The books you haven't read yet
Your antilibrary: the books you haven't read, arranged. And on top, the one you read next.
You know which books you haven't read. What you don't have is an order. These are twenty slots to give them one, so what you read next is already decided by the time you need it.
Where the word comes from
The word isn't ours.
Umberto Eco's library held tens of thousands of books and he had read almost none of them. Visitors took that for showing off. His answer was the opposite: the read ones are the ones that have stopped being useful, and the rest are the part still doing the work.
Nassim Taleb gave it a name in The Black Swan. He called it an antilibrary: not the shelf of what you know, the shelf of what you don't yet.
All we did was give it a size. Twenty slots, four shelves and an order, so it fits on one screen and in one afternoon.
What it looks like
- The apex
- 1
- the shelf of three
- 3
- the shelf of six
- 6
- The base
- 10
- free slots
Twenty slots · not one more
How it works
Three rules, and all three take room away. That's the point.
Books come in at the base
Every book enters at the bottom, and it enters cold. The one you heard about an hour ago starts level with the one that has waited two years, which is the only way the order means anything.
If the base is full, take a book out first.
One shelf at a time
A book climbs one shelf at a time and passes through all of them. It can reach the top, but never in one go. And if the shelf above is full, something there has to move first, which is you choosing this book over that one.
If the shelf above is full, free a slot first.
Only one fits on top
One book on top is the answer, but the work happens on the shelf below it. Three books is a choice you can make on a tired Tuesday. Forty is not.
To move another one up, move that one down.
You already have Want to read
So what is this for?
Want to read
The long list
- It grows and doesn't stop. Saving costs nothing, so you save.
- Everything sits equally close. The one from two years ago ties with last night's.
- So when you finish a book you open it and choose nothing. Forty books that are all equally possible is not a shortlist, it is a wall.
Your antilibrary
The same books, arranged
- Twenty slots, and they fill up. One in means one out.
- There's a top and a bottom. Arranging is already choosing.
- And the top of it answers. Not because we chose, but because you sat down one afternoon and decided the order.
Same books, a different promise.
How a book leaves
A book doesn't just vanish. It leaves through the top or the bottom.
And it isn't the same thing. The two exits at the apex say something about the book. The one at the base only says it isn't the moment.
From the apex
Mark as read
It leaves the antilibrary and drops out of Want to read. It stays on your shelf, read.
From the apex
Mark as abandoned
Putting it down is finishing with it too. No drama, and nothing to justify.
From the base
Remove from the antilibrary
No verdict. It frees a slot and the book stays in Want to read, waiting for a better moment.
Only for you
We remember how each book got there.
When it came in, how long it's been on that shelf, every time you moved it up or down. You move books, we keep the notes, and you never type a word.
A few months in, that tells you something you didn't know: which book you've spent half a year pushing down, which one shot up the day you bought it, how long you really take to reach the apex.
And none of it is ever shared. Even with your antilibrary open, the dates and the moves stay with you.
At the apex
Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro
- In your antilibrary
- since 2 months ago
- On this shelf
- since 11 days ago
Its life in your antilibrary
-
Moved up to the apex
11 days ago
-
Moved up to level 1
1 month ago
-
Moved down to level 2
2 months ago
3 more moves · see the full history
The shelf below is full, free a slot first.
Showing it
It starts private. You open it.
Your antilibrary is private by default, but you can open it and share it with other readers. They will only see the books, not how you move them.
Start with one.
Put it on the base and decide later whether it earns its way up. The other nineteen slots aren't going anywhere.